Every month the kids at church pick two people to pray for and sometime during the month, we’ll get together and make cards letting them know we care for them. Recently, one of the second graders made a beautiful card. When he turned it into me, I made over the way he had spelled his words. It was the neatest I had ever seen him write. He started his sentences with a capital. He put a space between every word. He ended sentences with a period. It was neatly done. He beamed as I told him how proud I was of him.
The class was wrapping up a few minutes later when he gently tugged on my sweater. I leaned over and with a wide smile, he whispered, “I want my card back.” My confused expression led to his explanation, “Because I did a great job on it, I’m going to keep it!” I looked at the card who had the name of one of our elderly ladies neatly written across the top and then into the smiling eyes of the cutest seven year old. I showed him his card, pointed to her name, and said, “But it’s not yours.” It took him a moment to understand that, yes, he had made it with the talents he had but it belonged to someone else. He wasn’t thrilled.
Church, we belong to Jesus. This life isn’t ours. It’s his name written across our life. This is about him. Too many of us are keeping what God has intended for us to give away. We weren’t given Salvation so we could hide it away. He hasn’t filled our hearts with peace and joy so we can keep them to ourselves. He hasn’t given us love so we can talk about it inside the safe walls of our neat buildings and then leave it there for a week.
He has given so we can give it away freely, radically, even recklessly by the world’s standards. This life, with its heaven-given gifts, isn’t ours. We belong to Jesus.